MISS MABEL, NOT MS. MABRY, BUT CLOSE ENOUGH?

One of the holy grails for fans of Betty Davis is a video recording of one of her infamous performances. Thus far – none have surfaced (but we hold out hope). Is this the next best thing?

This is a snippet from a 3 minute recording of Miss Label (Bealer), performing Davis’s “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up,” airing on the True Soul Revue on KHTV in 1973. This is found on a DVD included with the new True Soul Vol 2 CD that Now Again has released, looking at the history of the Arkansas soul/funk label, True Soul.

Obviously, I can’t compare Miss Mabel with Miss Mabry (i.e. Betty’s maiden name) since we don’t have the latter as a point of reference but one could imagine this was somewhere in the ballpark in terms of conveying some of Betty’s unabashed sexuality in her performances.